


Darcilla Played

by AbigaleGreen



Category: The Obsidian Trilogy - Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory
Genre: Background Character Exploration, Canon Compliant, Gen, Loss of Powers, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:31:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8173244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbigaleGreen/pseuds/AbigaleGreen
Summary: "Slowly, carefully like riffling through the pages of a book, Lycaelon sought through Darcilla's memories. Each time he found one attached to magick--even one so seemingly innocuous as listening to a song, attending a play, reading a book--he reached in and changed it, erasing some parts, changing other, connecting all of them with music."
Darcilla played.





	

 

Darcilla played.

She delighted in the sounds from the harp, her eyes going soft and unfocused. She liked music, she always had. When she sat at the harp, the world fell into place, all of the bits of chaos became patterned.

She played a scale, up and down, up and down. That was how her world went, orderly shifting from one note to the next.

She remembered that it once wasn’t that way. It wasn’t discussed, but Darcilla vaguely remembered some sort of conflict. Her mother had been distressed.

It must have been about music. Music was the only thing she could have felt so strongly about.

Mora had tried to talk with her once, about what had happened before. It was just a few weeks after Darcilla had brought the harp into her room, carefully settling it on each stair, too impatient to wait for the servants. The conservatory, she was going to go to the conservatory, she was going to play and play and there would be music, music everywhere, all around her, thrumming through her blood, strains drifting in her dreams and coloring the air she breathed.

Mora had mentioned magick, in her strange, halting way. She was like that, always had been, all quick, sudden motion and numbers and clacks of the counting-beads. She’d asked Darcilla if she was really was happier without her magick.

Darcilla remembered staring at her blankly. Magick? There had never been magick. All that was her was music, she had no time for things like magick. She’d said so, and Mora had looked shocked, opening her mouth to speak before shutting it when their mother entered. The two had shared a look, Mora’s fearful, Yanalia’s resigned and warning.

Darcilla had thought it was odd, but had gone back to her harp, wrapping herself in sound and strings.

She was doing well. She was doing well in the conservatory, she was praised and younger students admired her, older students stopped to listen. She was talented, there was no doubt she was talented. But she was not the best. She had to strive, to reach for the music, to tie the strings to herself, pull the music close and clutch it.

She closed her eyes, felt the strings under her fingers. She breathed deeply, once, twice. Three times. A sob huddled deep in her belly, smothered into silence. She could do it. She just had to try harder, practice more. Keep going.

Darcilla played until her pads streaked blood on the strings.


End file.
